Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with validation

Clinginess mode: Activated

cucumber patch — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 02:35:08 -0800

The age-old "crush on teacher" dilemma: I'm getting too attached to my TA and it needs to stop. How can I dial it back while maintaining a friendly, professional relationship? Background: I'm early-mid 20s, female; he's late 20s, male. I don't want to divulge too many details, so I'll just say that he oversees the clinical training of a small group of students within my year, and I'm in that group.

Previous groups he's tutored have raved about how awesome he is, and that he's the best supervisor out there. We've had him a few weeks and I can already see why: he's engaging, compassionate, competent, super-smart, and goes the extra mile to make sure we learn as much as possible in our precious weekly sessions (by giving out handouts, asking lots of questions, giving us insider tips etc.). I'm screwed because authority figures like this hit my buttons and hit them hard.

He added all of us on Facebook last week, which I initially thought was weird, but apparently he's done that in previous years in order to create discussion/feedback groups. (I don't know if that was his intention this year -- he hasn't set anything up yet.) He also messaged me asking about one of my hobbies, I messaged back, a conversation started up, and since then we've been chatting almost every day.

I think it's platonic on his end and maybe he's just super-friendly, although I get the sense that he might be a little bored and lonely (other than teaching us, he works long hours most days, and I can't imagine that someone with a busy social life would be messaging so frequently). I don't really care what his motives are -- or at least that's what I'm trying to tell myself. My main concern is that our conversations were a mild amusement in the beginning, but now it's almost an addiction for me. I feel relieved when I get a reply and I have that slightly anxious, waiting feeling for all the time in between. I haven't managed to muster the motivation to tactfully disengage, partly because I don't know how and ... partly because I just don't want to.

The boy I liked recently started dating another girl in my class, so I'm fresh off a rejection and extremely vulnerable to validation right now. I knew I was really screwed when we had our latest session -- I was off my game because I was hypersensitive to every interaction, and irrationally jealous of my clinical partner (also female) for knowing all the answers to his questions. I mention 'female' just to say that there's definitely a romantic component to it, but I don't think I'd actually want to be romantically involved with him. (Not that that would be even viable while we're still TA and student.) I think I just really need his validation, in a way that's becoming unhealthy. He's going to be our supervisor for the rest of this year, so I'm really going to need to nip this in the bud.

Steps I'm taking so far:

-- Getting a discussion group going on FB. I want to encourage communication between my supervisor and the other group members -- as far as I'm aware I'm the only one who's been in contact with him outside clinic hours, and I'm the only one who has his number (and he mine). Even though this secretly pleases me, I am uncomfortable being his sole spokesperson, and I do get lightly (if harmlessly?) teased by classmates whenever I tell them "he said he'd be late" etc. The last thing I want is to foster gossip about favoritism, or worse things.

-- Meeting more people outside my field. I went to a meetup the other day and it was a totally different crowd with dateable cute guys. I think doing this regularly will help me a lot.

-- Trying to talk to him less. This is difficult because 1) I genuinely enjoy talking to him, 2) I cannot stand unread messages (the red notification number! argh!), and 3) whenever I'm quiet for a bit he'll gently prod the conversation along, and sometimes ask where I've gone. This is the step I need the most help with. Is there a way to wean off contact without making him think something's wrong? Should I just talk about this issue (the unprofessional aspect, not romantic) directly with him? And if so: how?

Now that I'm single, how do I stop needing validation from men?

moons in june — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 15:24:01 -0800

Now that I'm single, how do I stop needing validation from men? I've been in consecutive LTRs since I was 16 (about 10 years), without more than a three month break in between.

My most recent breakup was because I didn't think I was being self reliant enough. Depending on my ex for too many things wasn't fair to him, and was holding me back from growing as a person. So I broke it off and am imposing singleness on myself.

Now I have to be more accountable for myself (for instance, not completely relying on one guy for emotional support, or having to call AAA to come rescue me from a snow drift instead of just calling the bf), which I'm finding to be harder than I thought. Turns out, I'm pretty clueless when it comes to a lot of obvious things since I'm not used to being on my own for them. I'm not proud of it.

The biggest trouble I've had so far with the whole thing is feeling the need for male attention. This is a new, embarrassing feeling for me, having been happy with the amount I got previously from SOs. I absolutely hate it. The need for approval and "you're pretty!" from men is overwhelming, and I'm so easily crushed when I don't get it. I'm trying not to hate on myself too hard for it, but it really feels pathetic.

How do I not feel like that? How do I stop needing validation from men?

I should add that since my last breakup, I've changed jobs from a fast-paced job where I'm always interacting with the public and getting a lot of attention to one where I work alone, during winter, in a tourist town. I love it, but it's ridiculously lonely. Add to that, I barely see my friends because I work 12 hour days 5 days a week, and it's basically a recipe for HOLY SHIT I NEED A LIFE.

I could really use some solid advice. Hope me?

addicted to praise

Anonymous — Tue, 28 Aug 2012 15:29:30 -0800

I am utterly enthralled with validation and praise, to an unhealthy extent. I want to change this. I have gifts and talents and redeeming virtues and believe on an intellectual level that my value as a human being ultimately derives from being a creation of God whom he loves and wants the very best for. However, this intellectual affirmation doesn't actually bring me pleasure, self-esteem or joy. Instead, being acknowledged and praised by others does.

I am mid 30s, female, married. No children.

I am often so hungry for adulation and praise that:

1. I drive people away at times with my need to be the center of attention
2. I trade things that aren't fully mine to give away (like my affections as I'm married) or that are improper trades for the thrill of validation
3. I disregard the fact that I am not looking out for the best interest of others or myself in my fixation for praise and my pursuit of desirability/likeability; i.e. I recognize that I am sometimes using others to feed my ego

I am sickened to admit that skeevy lines such as "I thought of YOU last night while I made love to my wife" thrill me. The power of eliciting desire in another is an intoxicating rush. It feels like a fast roller coaster or a really good dessert. And the examples are not confined to only sexual adulation (although that is a VERY powerful rush) - being seen at work as the go getter, the brilliant amazing etc give me that same thrill. Being complimented on my culinary prowess by friends does it for me too. All manner of praise gets me feeling high and loved and wonderful.

At this point I am not interested in talk therapy to get to the etiology of this unhealthy behavior. I recognize that there is likely a strong a direct link between my emotionally abusive childhood experience at the hands of my parents and this constant desire for validation. I'd like to focus exclusively on ending the behavior as it's very destructive and not at all demonstrative of the kind of person I want to be, especially as a Christian disciple called to humility and unselfishness.

My question for the experienced in the hive is: how? How to narrow the gap between who I want to be (the humble loving girl who doesn't crave attention) and who I am? Are there specific CBT techniques I could apply to change my lust for praise? Will I ever, when I'm "healthy" be free of the dopamine pathway triggering effect of adulation or will it be a temptation or mental health issue I will have to battle lifelong like a drug addict struggles with the temptation of the thrill of a chemical high? Steps I've taken so far are to think on and acknowledge the problem and enlist my best friend as an accountability partner in managing the more destructive elements of this behavior (like the acting out sexually).

Was this what I think it was?

Anonymous — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 05:10:24 -0800

Was this what I think it was? This has been bouncing around in my head for awhile and I need some help figuring it out. This is possibly a repost of a common theme but I need to get this out.

My fiancé and I were staying at her parents house and as we were getting ready to head out in the morning she went down on me. I was afraid of discovery by her parents and said no twice as well as pushing her shoulder. Her parents were in the next room so I couldn't do anything without potentially causing discovery so I shut up and focused on finishing. The kicker is that this was her means of grinding an axe with her parents!

This has never sat well with me and recalling it causes me discomfort and embarrassment. Calling it what I think it was is even more embarrasing. I mean, I'm six inches taller and a good 100 lbs. heavier so to characterize it as what I suspect it is seems ludicrous.

Would anyone share their opinion in how I should interpret this?

How can I get over my irrationalities about validation?

Anonymous — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 10:23:14 -0800

Racial filter: How can I get over my validation issues? I dated this popular white guy a year ago, in which didn't work out and slammed me into a wall of insecurity. I felt my roots, (Im a latina who grew up in black communities in NJ, going to an all white school which isnt unusual), were part of the problem since he used to poke fun at some "ghetto" quirks, such as the way I speak and certain cultural behaviors he found annoying. I felt so rejected after the breakup, to the point, it got desperate in wanting to attract attention from other white popular males to feel validated. In the process I completely lost myself.

I want to let go of this burden of feeling this way but I don't know where to start. I feel alone. For the record, I love all ethnicities but this one had me rattled. I know I've been trying to go after the unattainable in seeking approval with this certain group all my life and I want to stop, because this is unhealthy. Can you guys offer any advice on how to let go of this situation? Is there anyone who understands wanting to be validated by another racial group? My throwaway email is iamnothere87@gmail.com if you need more info. Theres only so much I can say on here without the situation being recognizable, I feel.

How do I validate a field in Access to DEMAND unique values?

man down under — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 23:20:16 -0800

MS Access Filter: How do I set a validation rule for a field in a form or table so that Access will immediately recognize that the same value has been used before and tell the user to generate a unique value? I'm using MS Access 2003

I want to have a field (Quote_Number) which serves as the primary key for the QuoteTable, but I want Access to tell me as soon as the focus tries to leave the field if the value is not unique.

As it is Indexed and does not allow duplicates in the table (or form version) Access tells me that it can't allow a duplicate value as the record is completed, but obviously I'd like to be informed of that before the whole Record has been filled in.

I don't want to simply use an Autonumber value, as I want to be able to customise the quote number's for various purposes, and have used an Input Mask to ensure it is a letter followed by a string of three numbers (L999).

This is a noob question, and will either be slap in the face easy to rectify or Google (if I knew what to search for), or horribly complex and it is only my ignorance that leads me to believe this should be simple...either way, I appreciate any help...

Stand back! I don't understand regular expressions

specialagentwebb — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:44:17 -0800

How do I use regular expressions to express "at least one of each of these, but not necessarily in this order"? I'm working on setting password verification for a website (ASP .NET, if it matters), but I can't wrap my head around the regex. I've never been that great at regular expressions, but this has me boggled. I roughly understand the "one or more" part, and how to define letters, numbers, and special characters, but how to combine them?

Here are the rules:
The password must contain at least one lower-case letter, at least one capital letter, at least one number (0-9), and at least one special character (!@#$%^&*).
No whitespace allowed.
It must be at least 8 letters
It must have a special character in the first 7 positions
The first and last characters can not be numbers.
It can't contain the user's username (probably easier to make this a separate validation).

The first one is the one where I get really stumped. So what's the prognosis, Hivemind? Is it possible to evaluate all of this in one regex, or should I just do one validation for each requirement?

How do we speel check an entire web sight?

advicepig — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 09:06:08 -0800

How do we spell check (and link check) an entire web site? So I look after a number of sites and we're starting to consider how we spell check an entire web site. The site uses a content management system and a number of other applications that deliver content to the user. We have things in place to spell check in the editor window of the CMS, but we're looking at a way to crawl the site and report errors. If the toolset also did link checking and validation, we'd be even happier. Got any recommendations?

Validating data on a pledge form

jbickers — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 04:53:43 -0800

Javascriptfilter: Building an online donation form, and need some hand-holding. Our non-profit is gearing up for membership drive, and we want to add "thank you gifts" (a la PBS) to our contribution page. The contribution page already exists and works; people type in the amount they want to give into a text field, with suggested giving levels out to the side.

But we want to add a list of "premiums" - DVDs, books, etc - that are only available at certain giving levels. So if you give $250, you get your choice of the DVD, book #1 or book #2; if you give $120, you can only choose between the two books.

We want all of the items to be displayed (so that people can see what they'd get if they upped their gift), but need some kind of validation logic that sends them back to the form with an error message if they choose a gift that is above their giving level.

Can you help with this? I'm guessing Javascript/Ajax is the answer, but my skills in the former are weak and in the latter are nil.

How do you find a new best friend?

Talez — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 06:00:51 -0800

As the title says, how do you find a new best friend? Just over a year ago my ex broke up with me and ever since then I feel like I've been lost. Not only was she the love of my life but she was my best friend. She used to want to know everything about what was going on in my life, how my day was, how I was feeling and, as much as that used to annoy me, now that I'm without it I realise what I had and would now give anything to get it back.

I've been trying different approaches but nothing seems to work. Is there any way you can seed a friendship to go in that direction when you think you've found someone you can get close to and open up to? It doesn't neccessarily need to be in a romantic sense. I guess I'm just looking for a little validation as a human being now and then.

object for iframe

juiceCake — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 08:31:30 -0800

Using Object instead of iframe for Google Calendar embeds? A client wants to play with the idea of embedding a particular Google Calendar. Google does this via iframe like so:

Since I prefer to use XHTML 1.0 Strict, iframe, being deprecated, doesn't validate. So I use the object tag like so:

Works fine in Firefox. Effectively crashes IE 6.

My Google Fu is at yellow belt and though I can find that people are having similar problems, I haven't found the exact one, nor if there is a solution that doesn't include ie conditional hacks. Any suggestions would be welcome.

What Happens When I Press This Button?

The_Partridge_Family — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 07:44:49 -0800

My personal laptop runs XP Pro which I installed using our company's install disc, which our nice IT guy lent me. To complete the install of IE7, you must hit a button which validates whether your copy of Windows is authentic. What will happen if I press it? I know there are bypass installs out there, I'm just more curious as to what exactly will happen. Could it;
a) install because I'm assuming it's a multi-user licence
b) not install period
c) not install and send data to MS
d) not install and send incriminating data to MS
e) ???

Ulterior Motives?

LoriFLA — Sun, 08 Oct 2006 08:31:04 -0800

Would you go back to school if only for the sake of having a Master's degree? I have always wanted to further my education, but not always for the right reasons. A part of me wants to overcome my working-class, dysfunctional upbringing and achieve more to prove that I have overcome my background.

I have a BS in nursing. I stay home with my kids at the moment. If I returned to work, I could make very decent money, and create my own hours. I have worked as a nurse for 7 years, and while I felt I was good at my job, I dreaded going in most days. I sometimes feel that I am "wasting" this degree and should return to nursing and make the best of it. Other times I think I would feel content if I never went back to nursing. I did have a very good attitude, and have a very good work ethic. One probably wouldn't guess that I disliked nursing while I was on the job. I always made the best of my days once I got there, but didn't want to go back.

I like staying home with my children. But I am not the Martha Stewart that I envisioned being, and feel very antsy to do something productive. If I am not going to be Betty Homemaker, I feel that I should do something before I turn into a completely depressed lazy person. I already feel that I am not living up to my potential at all when it comes to being a homemaker, and it makes me feel worse about myself.

My husband and I have discussed the fact that I probably won't ever have to go back to work if I don't want to. That appeals to my lazy ways, but I can't stay home for the rest of my life. Once both of my kids are in school full-time I think I will need to do something productive and fulfilling. I am not very self-motivated, and need some sort of job or class to report to.

I love volunteering at my son's school. It gives me a feeling of purpose. I have volunteered other places, and nothing has given me the satisfaction like this does.

I am applying to my local state university. They offer a MA in elementary education. It's designed for individuals who have a bachelors degree in a field other than education. It can be done very part-time. They allow seven years to complete the program, although I don't intend to take that long.

I am not completely sure that I want, or should become a teacher. I love being with kids, but I know that is not enough reason to become a teacher. I think I am idealizing the profession, and think that it will be something for me to do that will allow me to be with my children during summers, weekends, etc. I idealized nursing also, and would always discount naysayers as sour grapes. Now I know what they were talking about. I have thought about going into teaching for a couple years now. My sister who is a teacher thinks I will be great at it, and a couple teachers have told me I am wonderful with children.

After all of the above nonsense, here are my questions:

Should I go back to school if part, if not most of the reason is to just obtain a master's degree? I think I am looking for some sort of approval or validation. I am not desperate for approval, but I have to admit the feeling is there.

Teachers, how do you feel about teaching? If you could go back, would you do it over again?

Is this feeling of approval normal? Or am I lacking in self-esteem that I could repair just by being productive in my present life? I can't articulate what I think I am going to prove just by obtaining a degree in teaching. I think I need to prove something to myself--that I can do it, that I am smart enough, and that "I did something with my life." I think I would like to return to school and would enjoy teaching, but I want it to be for the right reasons.

Modifying php-based web calendar to allow UTF-8 (Japanese) input

planetkyoto — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 22:19:23 -0800

Probably easy question about PHP and unicode (UTF-8) and RegEx. I'm trying to modify a php webcalendar (VTcalendar) to allow Japanese text in calendar postings. I've found all the variables to get the UTF-8 headers, and so japanese text manually inserted into pages appears fine. But, there's an input validation thingy I don't know how to modify. (short snippet inside) The calendar item input form rejects any Japanese text, and I think I've traced it to the file "inputvalidation.inc.php" which starts with the code below. if I try to delete the part about allowable characters in line 7, I get an error about the '^' in the last line. can this be modified to allow UTF-8 characters?

if (!defined("ALLOWINCLUDES")) { exit; } // prohibits direct calling of include files
define("constValidTextCharWithoutSpacesRegEx",'\w~!@#\$%^&*\-+=\{\}\[\]\|\\\:";\'<>?,.\/');
define("constValidTextCharWithSpacesRegEx",'\s'.constValidTextCharWithoutSpacesRegEx);
define("constCalendaridMAXLENGTH",20);
define("constCalendaridVALIDMESSAGE", '1 to '.constCalendaridMAXLENGTH.' characters (A-Z,a-z,0-9,-,.)');
define("constCalendarnameMAXLENGTH",100);
define("constCalendarnameVALIDMESSAGE", '1 to '.constCalendarnameMAXLENGTH.' characters (A-Z,a-z,0-9,-,.,&,\',[space],[comma])');
define("constCalendarTitleMAXLENGTH",50);
define("constKeywordMaxLength",100);
define("constSpecificsponsorMaxLength",100);
define("constPasswordMaxLength",20);
define("constPasswordRegEx", '/^['.constValidTextCharWithoutSpacesRegEx.']{1,'.constPasswordMaxLength.'}$/');

RSS feed doesn't validate.

o2b — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 10:05:04 -0800

My RSS feed isn't validating, and I can't figure out why... Running it through the Feed Validator gives me the following error:

XML parsing error: :28:24: unclosed CDATA section

This happens semi-regularly with WordPress, and I haven't been able to track down a suitable answer as to why it happens, even in the WP forums.

Usually I can sniff out a bad character or something, but this time I'm simply stumped, and the post causing the problem is fairly important to me, so I'd like my few RSS subscribers to know about it.

My feed's address: http://o2b.net/feed/

Hope me, hope me!